چکیده انگلیسی

Theories of outstanding, historically notable leadership have traditionally emphasized charisma. Recent research, however, suggests that charisma may represent only one pathway to outstanding leadership. Outstanding leadership may also emerge from ideological and pragmatic leadership. This article examines the conditions influencing the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. In particular, different conditions operating at the environmental, organizational, group, and individual levels influence the emergence and performance of each of these three types of leaders. Implications for understanding the origins and impact of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders are discussed as well.

مقدمه انگلیسی

Traditionally, students of leadership have sought to identify the individual and situational variables that influence leader emergence and performance in routine, day-to-day organizational settings. Thus the literature has stressed behaviors such as consideration, initiating structure, participation, and change management (e.g., Fleishman, 1953, Hunt, 2004, Marta et al., 2005 and Yukl, 2002) and situational variables such as follower expertise (Hersey & Blanchard, 1982), leader–follower relationships (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), and the degree of task structure (House, 1971) that might moderate the effects of these behaviors on leader emergence and performance. Although this research has contributed much to our understanding of leadership in its normative form, it is open to question whether it has told us much about incidents of truly outstanding leadership—incidents where leaders exercise exceptional influence over followers to obtain notable results (Bass, 1985 and Mumford, 2006).
Recognition of the limitations of normative leadership theory in accounting for incidents of outstanding leadership—for example, Winston Churchill in the Battle of Britain, Michael Collins in the foundation of the Irish Republic, and Thomas Watson in the creation of IBM—has led students of leadership to seek to identify the attributes of leaders that make these incidents of outstanding leadership possible (House, 1977). Theories of charismatic and transformational leadership have become the dominant models applied in attempts to account for incidents of outstanding leadership (Avolio et al., 1999, Bass and Avolio, 1990, Conger, 1999, Conger and Kanungo, 1988 and House and Howell, 1992). Although theories of charismatic and transformational leadership differ from each other in some notable ways, they share a common core. Specifically, they hold that outstanding leadership is based on effective articulation of a future-oriented vision that motivates and directs others while providing a sense of meaning and affective engagement (Bass, 1990 and Shamir et al., 1993).
In fact, the available evidence indicates that a leader's articulation of a viable vision is positively related to various indices of organization performance (Deluga, 2001 and Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1996), follower motivation (Sosik, Kahai, & Avolio, 1999), effective group interaction (Parry & Proctor-Thomson, 2003), and satisfaction with both the leader and the group (Dumdum, Lowe, & Avolio, 2002). Although some evidence indicates that charismatic visioning may contribute to outstanding leadership, charismatic theories have been subject to some noteworthy criticisms (Beyer, 1999). For example, charismatic leadership seems to exert stronger effects in bureaucratic organizations than in non-bureaucratic organizations (Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996), and it may prove ineffective in some groups such as research and development professionals (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002). Charismatic leadership theories, moreover, seem to discount—or ignore—some key functions of leaders, such as planning and decision making (Yukl, 1999).
These observations led Mumford and his colleagues (Mumford, 2006, Mumford and Van Doorn, 2001 and Strange and Mumford, 2002) to argue that we might need to examine alternative pathways to, or alternative types of, outstanding leadership. Drawing from earlier work by Weber (1924), they argued that three distinct types of outstanding leadership may exist: charismatic leadership (e.g., John F. Kennedy), ideological leadership (e.g., Ronald Regan), and pragmatic leadership (e.g., Dwight Eisenhower). The present article examines the conditions shaping the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders at the environmental, organizational, group, and individual levels. Before examining these multi-level influences on charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership, however, it would seem germane to consider the general model of outstanding leadership giving rise to these three alternative pathways.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

Before turning to the broader conclusions flowing from the present effort, certain limitations should be noted. To begin, this article has not attempted to provide a comprehensive description of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership. In part, this limitation reflects the fact that more complex descriptions of charismatic (e.g., Conger & Kanungo, 1998), ideological (e.g., Strange & Mumford, 2002), and pragmatic (e.g., Mumford & Van Doorn, 2001) leaders are available. This limitation also arises from this study's focus on the individual, group, organizational, and environmental variables influencing the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders.
Along related lines, the present study could not—and, in fact, has not—examined all of the individual, group, organizational, and environmental variables that might conceivably influence the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. Instead, we have focused on variables that account for differential emergence and performance on the part of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. As a consequence, less attention was given to communication skills (e.g., Fiol et al., 1999) than to cognitive skill requirements for pragmatic leaders (e.g., Marcy and Mumford, 2007 and Mumford and Van Doorn, 2001) or social skill requirements for charismatic and ideological leaders (e.g., Zaccaro et al., 1991).
Finally, observations with regard to individual, group, organizational, and environmental influences on differential leader emergence and performance were formulated with respect to a given level of analysis. This within-level formulation is, of course, consistent with the current stage of development of research on charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership: Despite the existence of many studies on charismatic leadership, systematic studies of ideological and pragmatic leadership have appeared only in the last few years. This approach, while perhaps dictated by the current status of the literature, does not imply that significant cross-level effects do not exist. Indeed, these effects should be examined in future studies exploring charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership.
Nonetheless, our observations with regard to multi-level influences on the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders do suggest some cross-level phenomena that might be of interest in future work along these lines. For example, perhaps charismatic and ideological leaders may sometimes induce political conflict to create conditions that favor their emergence and performance. In contrast, pragmatic leaders may seek to minimize political conflict due to the detrimental effects of intense conflict on the effective application of complex problem-solving skills. Shared leadership and the cohesion of ideological groups may minimize the tendency of followers to scrutinize ideological leaders, thereby limiting the potential detrimental effects of follower evaluations on ideological leadership. Moreover, ideological leaders may create perceptions of victimization and unfairness to engender the threat perceptions that make their prescriptive mental models more attractive to followers. Although other examples of this sort may be cited, the foregoing examples seem sufficient to illustrate the potential value of cross-level studies examining the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders.
Even with these caveats, we believe that our examination of individual, group, organizational, and environmental influences on the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders has some noteworthy implications. Table 1 summarizes these implications.
Prior studies contrasting charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders have focused primarily on demonstrating the existence of different patterns of behavior across these three types of outstanding leaders (e.g., Mumford, 2006 and Strange and Mumford, 2002). In this regard, our observations are noteworthy because they suggest that charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders differ not only in their behavior, but also in the conditions promoting emergence of these leaders and in the conditions that facilitate effective exercise of influence on the part of such leaders. Our observations, therefore, support the substantive meaningfulness of these three alternative pathways to outstanding leadership.
In addition to providing evidence pointing to the distinction we have drawn between charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership, our observations support the general model of outstanding leadership held to give rise to these alternative pathways. This model holds that outstanding leadership ultimately arises from sense-making activities in relation to crises (Hunt, Boal, & Dodge, 1999). In sense making, however, leaders make different assumptions about causation and the relative emphasis to be placed on goals and causes in the formation of the prescriptive mental models that will be applied in sense making and vision formation (Mumford, 2006).
These differential frames for sense making are, in fact, consistent with the findings obtained in recent studies that have examined individual, group, organizational, and environmental influences on the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. For example, social disruption, social conflict, and institutional failure should lead to an emphasis on situational causes, a focus on threats, and a tendency to stress traditional goals and values—all characteristics of the ideological prescriptive mental model. Consistent with these observations, Mumford et al. (in press) found that these conditions promote the emergence of ideological leaders.
Not only does this theory produce hypotheses that have been confirmed in recent studies examining individual, group, organizational, and environmental influences, but it also generates hypotheses that seem to be consistent with much of what we know about the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. For example, the proposition that pragmatic leaders rely on cognitive skills is consistent not just with the prior observations of Mumford & Van Doorn (2001), but is in keeping with the finding of Marcy and Mumford (2007) that causal analysis contributes to social innovation—a hallmark of pragmatic leaders. Along similar lines, prior studies of charismatic leadership indicate that the formation of cohesive groups dedicated to the future-oriented goals being articulated by charismatic leaders may represent a critical determinant of the ability of charismatic leaders to exercise influence (Klein & House, 1998).
Another piece of evidence pointing to the viability of this theory is that it leads to some new hypotheses about the conditions giving rise to the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. For example, chaos and complexity appear to exert a rather complex set of effects on the emergence and performance of these three types of leaders. Chaotic conditions favor ideological leaders, whereas ordered conditions favor pragmatic leaders. Both pragmatic leaders and charismatic leaders appear more likely to emerge and perform effectively in complex environments. Alternatively, the viability of the leader's prescriptive mental model might potentially be more important for charismatic and ideological leaders than for pragmatic leaders—a hypothesis that warrants some attention in future studies.
A final piece of evidence bearing on the validity of this model relates to its ability to permit differential predictions with regard to leader emergence and performance. While social disruption and conflict may promote the emergence of ideological leaders, this conflict, when coupled with oppositional bonding at the group level, may undermine performance. Similarly, trust may not be necessary for the emergence of ideological leaders, but trust building does appear central to long-term performance. For charismatic leaders, however, trust appears integral to both emergence and performance.
Taken as a whole, these observations provide support not only for the validity of the model of outstanding leadership under consideration, but also for the existence of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic pathways to outstanding leadership—pathways that emerge from a dynamic interaction of leaders and their environments as they seek to make sense of crises. Although the suggestion that multiple alternative pathways to outstanding leadership exist is not new (Weber, 1924), leadership theory has in the recent past focused almost exclusively on one form of outstanding leadership—charismatic leadership. This emphasis on charismatic leaders may have resulted in an overly simplistic image of outstanding leadership. It leads to the assumption that an emotionally evocative future-oriented vision is the way to lead, despite the fact that a variety of conditions operating at the individual, group, organizational, and environmental levels influence the emergence and performance of charismatic leaders and result in differential opportunities for charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership. By illustrating how various conditions operating at different levels influence the differential emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders, the current study sets the stage for new, more sophisticated studies that recognize the complex nature of the different pathways to outstanding leadership.